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Anthony St Clair

The Martini of Destiny

Synopsis

One drink changed everything. Influencing a man's fate should have been another day behind the bar. Bartender Jake Hongkong has served The Management longer than any other Jake or Jade, but now he doubts his role influencing people’s destinies and decisions. Declan is directionless and scared when he comes to the pub, yet one drink is all it takes to give him the courage to make a life-altering decision. Deeply shaken by something he wasn't meant to see, Jake doubts more than ever, and consequences ripple through destiny and the world. Soon one martini will forever alter lives and fates... especially Jake's and Declan’s.
** A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novella **
This riveting fantasy novella is part of the Rucksack Universe series, the exciting world of wit, adventure, and beer that fans call “buoyant with a unique humor, twist and focus on international travel,” and “perfect for fans of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.”

Author Biography

Fantasy author and beer writer Anthony St. Clair has walked with hairy coos in the Scottish Highlands, choked on seafood in Australia, and watched the full moon rise over Mt. Everest in Tibet. The creator of the Rucksack Universe series, Anthony has traveled the sights and beers of Thailand, Japan, India, Canada, Ireland, the USA, Cambodia, China and Nepal. He and his wife live in Eugene, Oregon, and gave their kids passports when they were babies. Learn more at www.anthonystclair.com.

Author Insight

Absinthe... Coffee... Water... Stout...

The other day my wife and I were talking about The Martini of Destiny.
"I love this one," she said. "Of course I'm biased. But I love how you structured it. I keep wondering, too, when you're going to come back to those concepts about the absinthe, coffee, water, and stout."
That conversation has been on my mind a lot. There's been the martini... but there's a lot more around these other beverages and their roles in the stories of the Rucksack Universe.
What will that next round be?

Book Excerpt

The Martini of Destiny

The Absinthe of Dreams

JAKE RAN into a dream.

He’d pressed through the narrow side streets of Hong Kong’s Wan Chai District in Causeway Bay. The man with the gloved left hand was far ahead, but still just barely visible. Jake dodged taxis, ran past the signs flashing in English and Chinese, and elbowed his way through the end-of-the-day crowds. The noisy world clanged like his pounding heart while he ran as fast as he could, but he couldn’t catch the ghost.

Jake turned onto a climbing walkway of gray stone and gray walls, just as the man passed under a red and gold gate. When Jake passed through it, the world seemed to change. The city’s glaring lights and endless cacophony faded, replaced by the bright colors of legends and hells.

The Tiger Balm Gardens, he thought, looking for where the man with the gloved left hand had gone. Built by Aw Boon Ha, a man who’d made a killing creating and selling an herbal balm, the Gardens were an everyman’s vision of the afterlife. All around Jake, the ground sprouted painted concrete figures. Walls writhed with golden demons, souls and myths. A woman rode astride a water buffalo. A phoenix rose in flight.

A woman sipping absinthe in the pub had once explained to Jake how the world soon would look to her. “My dreams take the green stream out of my eyes,” she had said. “They leave my mind, liberated. They blossom to the world, and they show that beneath the dirty, cracked, dusty, greasy skin of what we call life, the world shines silver and gold underneath.”

The Gardens could have been her mind, Jake thought, contempt lending harshness to his thoughts. He didn’t like absinthe, and he didn’t like the Gardens. The painted concrete seemed to shimmer, and he could not tell real from dream. He looked down one long passage of bright red, textured like cave walls. Entwined in the rock, a blue dragon shone with all the fire and power of the stars. No audience attended the dragon in the empty stone plaza below it; only a small, round bushy tree humbled itself before the dragon’s might. But before he rushed toward the plaza, a neighboring passage caught his eye. Near a statue of a pig walking, a shadow faded. Jake ran toward it. He heard footsteps walking on a stone staircase. Walking, thought Jake as he dashed. Like the bastard’s just out for a leisurely stroll in the eighteen levels of Buddhist hell. At the bottom of the stone steps, he looked up.